The present invention relates to virtual spaces and particularly to using a protocol to lt describe a series of objects onto such a virtual space.
A virtual space consists of a surface with rectangular bounds and the area above the surface. This is very much like a landscape or topography in the real world. Virtual spaces can contain data objects spread across the surface, much in the same way that buildings, roads, and other real-world objects are arrayed on the surface of our world. Just as buildings in the real world can be grouped hierarchically into neighborhoods, cities, or nations, objects in a virtual space can be grouped into hierarchical categories.
Many types of hierarchical objects can be placed in a virtual space. The co-pending application, Ser. No. 09/712,107, filed on Nov. 14, 2000, entitled “System and Method for Network Information Visualization,” which is incorporated herein by reference, describes one use for such objects in a virtual space. In that application, a virtual space of URL objects from the Internet is described. In such a system, URLs objects are placed in the virtual space according to categories, such as MUSIC, COMPUTERS, POLITICS, etc. Using the system described (which includes a database, a web server, and a browser), a user connected to the Internet can view and navigate through a 2D map or a 3D map of the virtual space to locate desired URLs. Other categorized virtual spaces could contain a manufacturers' product catalog or a library's card catalog. Or, the virtual space could be used within a geographic information system or a multi-user computer game, for example.
Although applications running on a single computer have not needed a visualization protocol, client/server applications requires the use of some type of visualization protocol. In such a system, a server stores information about the objects in the virtual space on a database and transmits a description of the virtual space over a network (such as the Internet) to client computers. In the past, such client/server computer applications have had disadvantages. The protocols have not been compact and have not made efficient use of network bandwidth. Usually, protocols have consisted of large messages to the client describing all of the details of how to draw a current map portion of the virtual space. One such example of this is VRML (virtual reality markup language). Although such protocols do well in describing the landscape, they use far too much bandwidth. In addition, protocols that enforce a particular visualization severely limit the client application. Such a client cannot alter the presentation of the information to suit the need of different types of user groups. In order to present the information in a different way, both the client and the server must be modified.
Some protocols have had the disadvantage of being closed, proprietary protocols.
Although some manufacturers claim that such a closed system best protects their market interests, open source applications, such as Linux, have recently shown that open source applications help to encourage further enhancements and industry adoption of standards.
As with many elements of the Internet, past protocols have acted as though everyone on the Internet speaks English. Non-English speakers have had troubles working with other protocols that do not support other languages. And even English speakers have not been able to easily use past protocols because the protocols have not readily described the categories or other hierarchical principles of the objects and the metadata associated with the objects.
What is needed is an easy-to-use protocol for describing objects in a virtual space. Such a protocol should be extensible, well suited to web-enabled client/server systems, and capable of supporting multiple languages.